Ch. 1 Sixteen

Dad came in that morning and started to shake me to get out of bed. I normally got up on my own, but as far as I knew we didn’t have anything planed for that day and I really didn’t feel like getting up. “Anjanique, get up at least long enough for me to talk to you.” Dad said when he knew that I was trying to pretend to be asleep.

I rolled over, and sat up at looked at Dad. “What Dad?” I said as I rubbed my eyes.

“I thought we weren’t doing anything this morning.”

“We’re not, but I am. I have to take Prince Louis out on that hunt with Kemichi, remember? I told you last night that you didn’t have to come.” Dad was already dressed to go. How long had I slept in?

“Then why did you wake me up?” I grumbled. I had never been much of a happy camper in the morning, especially when I had just been told that I didn’t have to get up in the first place.

“I’ll be home late. In case I don’t make it home tonight, you’re having breakfast with the Royal family in the morning. They specifically asked that you be there. If I don’t come home, I’ll be staying at the palace, so don’t get worried. And while I’m gone today will you please feed the birds and clean up the leaves in the yard?” Dad knew that I would do what ever he asked me. That was part of being his daughter and an apprentice. I had to do whatever he asked.

I looked at him with half lidded eyes and nodded. I wanted to go back to sleep right that second but I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep and if I did, it wouldn’t be for more than an hour. “Wait I’m having breakfast with the Royal family on my birthday? I thought…” I stopped mid sentence. I knew that Dad would stop me anyways.

“Yes. From what I understand, the King has some big surprise for you. Don’t ask me. I don’t know what it is.” Dad started walking towards my door. “Goodbye love.” He said as he walked out the door. The second the door shut I was horizontal in my bed again.


I was right. Within an hour, I was awake again. I hated it when that kind of thing happened to me. All I had wanted to do that morning was sleep in, and it so didn’t get to happen. It wasn’t fair.

I slowly forced myself to get out of bed. Not fair. I thought again. I found some old ratty clothes. Hell, I wasn’t going into town today; I didn’t have to worry about whether or not my leggings had holes in them. I got dressed and hurried outside to feed the falcons and hawks. Dad had always taught me that the birds came first; it didn’t matter how hungry I was, the birds got fed first.

After I fed the birds I started on my other normal everyday chores. Feed the horses, muck stales, and water the stupid plants. Okay I guess the plants weren’t all that stupid; I mean the where the ones Mother had planted before she died. Why where they still alive again? After I was done with those chores I finally got to eat. Hooray!!

“Fruit and yogurt; Wow that was filling.” I said out loud to the empty house. Sometimes I was really glad that I wasn’t just Dad’s apprentice. Had I been I would have been forced to go with him this morning, there would have been no way that an apprentice would have gotten left at their master’s house. Not a chance.

I decided that if I was eating with the Royal family in the morning I should probably make sure that my ‘nice’ clothes where clean. My ‘nice’ clothes consisted of a pair of leggings that weren’t ripped nor stained and had a little tiny bit of gold trim around the edges and tunic that was almost identical the leggings. The king and queen had given them to me for my birthday last year.

Thinking about where I had gotten my nice clothes made me start to think about what they could possibly be surprising me with this year. I couldn’t remember how many times I had told them that it wasn’t necessary for them to give me anything on my birthday or Christmas but still they did. You couldn’t say “no” to the king and queen, you just couldn’t. I continued to come up with ridicules ideas for what they could possibly be doing, as I looked for my clothes; I found them buried under a whole bunch of other stuff in my room.

As I picked them up off my floor I smacked my forehead and groaned. I thought my dress clothes weren’t torn, but the clothes staring you back in the face was hard to argue. I couldn’t remember the last time I had worn them, and when I had it sure looked like I had just torn them on the floor. Not only where they ripped every where, but they where filthy. How many times had Dad told me to hang them up, and then I never had? Well maybe Dad had a point some of the time.

I knew I had to do something about the clothes. If I showed up at the palace for anything other than the falconry lessons I helped my father teach in my plain brown heavy rugged clothes, Father would shoot me. That wouldn’t be good. The only thing I could do would be to fix the holes and hope that nobody noticed. And then most importantly, make sure I actually hung them up after this. That was defiantly a plan for me.

I carried my clothes over to the chair in the living room which was by my sewing basket. Here we go. I got lucky, and almost all of the holes where in the seams. So it looked like the tailor had heard that the clothes where for me and took short cuts on them. Because most of the rips where in the seams, fixing both the tunic and leggings only took me an hour.

By now it was almost noon and almost warm enough to do laundry. I carried the newly fixed clothes outside, and because I was just going to wash them, I threw them on the floor while I went to get the wash basin out of the shed. I sat down with my wash basin full of water and soap, and my wash board. The second I stuck the clothes into the water a set of hands covered my eye.

I screamed. I normally wasn’t all that jumpy, but when someone snuck up on me like that, I usually screamed and jumped. I twisted around and the hands came off of my eyes. I jumped up when I saw who it was. “You’re Highness…”

“Gregory! How many times do I have to tell you?” The prince who was standing behind me said.

“Fine then. Gregory. Don’t scare me like that!” I said very loudly. Although Gregory had his cloak hood pulled up over his head, I still knew it was him. He was really the only one who snuck up on me like that was him. I turned away from Gregory and sat back down.

Gregory pushed his hood off of his face and sat down next to me. I pushed my hand back into the water and started scrubbing the clothes again. “Your doing wash again?” He asked me as I plunged my hands in again. “You’re always doing laundry.”

“No I’m only ever doing laundry when you show up at my house.” I said as I looked at him over my shoulder. “I figured if I was eating breakfast with your family in the morning, I should make sure that the clothes your parents gave me for my birthday last year where clean.”

Gregory looked at me slightly confused. “Wait, you’re eating with us in the morning?” He still seemed fairly confused. That was just like him never paying attention when his parents told him something.

“Yeah. What didn’t they tell you that?” I said as I pulled the clothes out of the basin and started to check for marks and stains.

“No they probably did, I just didn’t remember.”

Gah! This boy was such a nitwit!! I don’t really understand how he handles being a prince. How can you possibly be a prince when you never paid any attention to anything? That and I knew for a fact that he knew nothing about politics. I knew more than he did. What’s wrong with that picture?

“Do you ever remember anything?” I asked him as pulled my clothes out of the water and went to go hang them up.

“Not most of the time.” That was exactly the answer I was expecting. There was no doubt that he hadn’t caught on to why I was eating with them. Four years of practically being his best friend and he still didn’t remember that every year on my birthday, a week and a half before his, I ate breakfast with his family. It was like that every year. And sure enough he never remembered until the morning of when my father and I showed up and there was one present on the dining hall table. Only one, but that was more than enough. I could never successfully convince them not to give me anything.

Gregory looked at me with this look that instantly told me that he was thinking really hard about something. “Wait just a moment.” He said as he held his hand up to me. “Isn’t your birthday tomorrow?” I guess I must have had the biggest look of shock on my face because he said, “Oh wow. I remembered that. That’s a surprise.”

“Yeah you remembered. Big deal.” I said kind of harshly. I guess I had just gotten used to him not remembering and I liked that fact; it made my birthday not feel like such a big deal. Frankly I didn’t really care about my birthday. The only one I had ever really cared about was my eighth when dad let me help take care and fly the birds.

I looked over at Gregory when he started to stand up. “See you the morning Anjanique.” He said as he pulled his hood over his head and left my yard.

I fell back onto the ground when he was out of sight. “Thank goodness he’s gone.” Gregory could get on my nerves so easily.